Swann
Character Details Swann is a semi tank that can use 3 different types of turrets to secure a defensive position or to advance offensively. He does very well in defending and fortifying a position thanks to a long range turret, a flame turret that deals high damage to light units and a gatling turret that deals high damage to armoured units. In addition to having high dps output through his turrets, the turrets are able to tank quite a lot of damage especially after a mastery that gives all turrets shields. Swann has a hard time spamming out turrets due to long cooldowns and low energy maximum and regeneration. This can be countered by learning lightweight equipment mastery, or energy mastery and absoption perk. Active Skills Place Hellfire Missile Battery This skill allows swann to place a hellfire missile battery that deals high damage over a long range. This can be used to seige heavily defended areas or to kill a tanky boss. The hellfire missile battery can be upgraded many times in terms of damage, range and cooldown. Place Gatling Turret This skill allows swann to place a gatling turret that deals high damage to armoured units, especially after learning haywire missile mastery. If haywire missile mastery is learnt, the gatling turret will also acquire that mastery, dishing out high damage early in the game. Place Flaming Betty This skill allows swann to place a flaming betty that deals massive damage to light units such as zerglings or hydralisks. The flaming betty can help to seige or defend crucial structures and push back waves of light units. Also, they can divert aggro to themselves. This allows swann to run away from bosses or to make zerg units attack the flaming betty. Construct Satelite Uplink Tower This skill can only be unlocked after the player has learnt the unlockable mastery. The satelite uplink tower increases the range and attack speed of two turrets. This buff stacks up to 5 times, and will give an insane amount of range and firepower to the turrets that are being buffed. This combination is only used when needed because it costs minerals to build setalite uplink towers. Tac Nuke Strike This ability, universal across all heroes, gives the character the ability to call down a tactical nuke strike at the target location after 20 seconds. Nuke damage, radius, cost, time to make and cast range can be upgraded by certain nuke talents and the nuke mastery. Nukes are very good at clearing buildings without getting close to them, thus causing no damage to be taken by the character at all. However, nukes take some time to build (6-60 seconds) and can be very costly in harder difficulties, although that can be reduced drastically by certain talents and a pyro mastery. Note: The picture shows two nukes available. Each player enters the game with a maximum of 1 nuke, but can increase the count to 2 by learning a talent. (Or mastery in pyro's case) Passive Skills Inspire Inspire increases maximum life, life regeneration and attack speed of crap patrol units that are nearby the character. This increases the longer the unit stays in the character's vicinity. This is very useful when pushing into heavily defended areas such as the omegalisk lair. Certain units such as liberators can have the inspire aura too, inspiring crap patrol units even when the character is not around. Adaptive Armour Adaptive armour gives extra armour when the character is hit, up to 15 times for 8 seconds. This is very useful when being surrounded by numerous units that deal very little damage by themselves but can deal high damage in packs, such as zerglings or banelings. Irradiate Aura Irradiate aura is a very useful skill when pushing into heavily defended areas. It damages nearby enemy units and structures, and the damage increases the longer the unit or structure stays in the radius. The damage ramps up even faster when multiple irradiate auras are around, and this can help to kill bosses very easily. Masteries Energy Mastery This mastery is very useful in conjunction with lightweight equipment mastery as lightweight equipment mastery will allow you to spam your skills, while energy mastery allows you to sustain Swann dropping turrets everywhere. In addition to increasing your energy regeneration and energy maximum, this mastery also improves the delay of shield regeneration. Lightweight Equipment Mastery This mastery is almost always instantly picked up due to the usefullness early in the game. In exchange for 4000-5000 minerals, the cooldown of all active abilities are reduced. This allows swann to spam out all his turrets with ease. Weapons Research Mastery Researching this mastery is similar to the lightweight equipment mastery in the sense that it will cause swann to spend 5000 minerals over time. This increases the overall damage of all turrets. This is an average mastery because the damage can be upgraded over time and haywire missile mastery may be a better mastery depending on the difficulty. Allrounder Mastery This mastery is usually picked only when grinding rank points, as most players do not want to waste a mastery point on this mastery. However, when grinding rank points, games can be rather long. Thus, the extra 2 talents at the start and the extra 2 talent points every 45 minutes can help a lot. Also, energy maximum is increased, however it is rather small and energy mastery is a better bet. Iron Man Mastery A very useful mastery when playing easy, hard or mental difficulties. This protects the character's xp and gold hen he or she dies, making it a very good mastery for newer players who might die easily. Most players would want to pick this mastery if they are playing on hard and above, especially when losing all the gold when a hybrid destroyer kills swann sucks a lot. Big Game Hunter Mastery This mastery increases both auto attack and grenade damage against massive units, such as ultralisks, queens and abberations. Also, extra xp is given after killing them. This is very useful because swann can learn more talents quickly after killing massive units. This also makes killing the ultralisks easier. Haywire Missile Mastery Almost a must-pick-mastery, haywire missile mastery causes swann to carry a missile launcher around which shoots rockets at enemy targets every 5 seconds, dealing high damage and outranging spine crawlers. This mastery also affects swann's gatling turret, increasing the damage output of the gatling turret. This is by far the only mastery that gives the most amount of damage early game, thus many players like to pick this when entering the game. Weakspot Mastery This mastery allows Hellfire battery and Gatling turret to ignore armour, which in turn allows them to dish out more damage. This outperforms weapons research mastery due to the armour ignoring attribute that this will provide the turrets with. Combat Architect Mastery This mastery increases life regeneration, reduces cooldown and build time of the satelite uplink tower. It also gives all three turrets self repair, allowing for sustainable turrets that can tank damage over time. This mastery is mainly good because of the cooldown of the uplink tower, because the late game firepower increase. Satelite Uplink Mastery (Unlockable Mastery) This mastery allows swann to construct satelite uplink towers, which increases the range and attack speed of two turrets. This buff stacks up to 5 times, and will give an insane amount of range and firepower to the turrets that are being buffed. This combination is only used when needed because it costs minerals to build satelite uplink towers. However, the satelite uplink mastery can be used to push back or defend against the death wave at the final stage of the game. Nuke Mastery An almost must have mastery, the nuke mastery gives a higher nuke radius, higher nuke damage against heroic and a global cast range. This allows swann to call down nukes as long as there is vision. This helps to clear areas much easier, especially when the cast range for nukes is very small. However, it is not recommended to pick nuke mastery early in the game, as nukes are not needed. Frontal Assualt Mastery This mastery provides swann with extra shields, as well as giving his three turrets shields. This allows the turrets to tank a lot more damage, especially with flaming betty being able to divert aggro. This should be picked up early to mid game because of the ability to tank much more damage from zerg units and bosses. Armour Mastery This mastery gives armour and shield armour. It requires swann to be lvl 10, since it does give quite a lot of armour. This is good to be picked up mid game, as it will help with surviving hard hits from bosses, especially when playing solo games. Fist of Fury Mastery This mastery gives swann a lot of auto attack damage and attack speed. It also increases health and armour, and also reduces the damage taken by stimpack. This gives an overall stat boost to offensive side of swann. However, he can still be destroyed by ultralisks or hybrid destroyers when playing on harder difficulties.